Danielle Nelson, '17

Danielle is a double major in Economics and Management, and Public Policy with a French minor. She is a member of the Gerald R. Ford Institute for Leadership in Public Policy and Service. Her Economics classes are a great way to build on and improve the depth of her studies in Public Policy. She has a passion for urban planning and urban studies and is looking forward to taking urban economics classes at the Philadelphia Center next spring.

The Albion community is very important to her and she has found her niche in working in city government. She just completed an internship with Albion’s new City Manager this past semester where she organized special projects, developed new policies, worked on economic development programs and strategies, organized a series of community forums, and will be volunteering her time creating a community engagement strategy to gather public input to rewrite the Comprehensive Plan. Danielle also just accepted an internship with the City Manager of Springfield, MI for the summer where she will be working side-by-side with the City Manager on rewriting the Master Plan and the Future Land Use Plan and developing a community engagement strategy. She will also be spending her summer analyzing potential routes to complete sections of the Iron Belle Trail and the Great Lake-to-Lake Trail in the tri-county area and developing a public policy model to help communities like Albion move from opportunity to intentionality when trying to complete their sections of these trails.

She has held a number of positions on campus but her favorite is being a First Year Experience Mentor. Danielle enjoys guiding first-year students through their first semester at Albion and helping them build a community within their class and discover the path that is best for them. Her favorite thing about Albion College is the relationships that she has built with so many of her professors. She says that without the help and support of her professors, she would not have had such incredible opportunities. Not only have they helped her discern the path that is best for her but they have also created classes such as “Sustainable and Innovative Cities” to allow her and students like her to explore topics that truly fascinate them.